Charles has been playing with a Pro+ for the past two season and is having a great start to this season with a 5 points game (1 goal, 4 assist) in a 5 to 1 win last week and help his team tie the next game in a 4-4 draw after trailing 0-4 .This kid was the only player wearing Brain Pad and now he will have 10 of his teammates joining him.Charles father, Serge Boutin who works at the Radio-Canada ,was getting a new model for his son from Vic Theriault after playing two full season wearing the Pro +. Word got out how much these players like and I was ask to meet the coaches and parents who all agreed to participate in a research program to see how many stick with that model with team president Sylvain Petelle and coach Benoit Courchesnes .This will give the product a serious look and try out in hard hitting kids hockey.

We now will follow 11 kids from the Elites Bantam “CC” in the Federation de L’Est Hockey who agreed to give it a serious try and must be congratulated for being pro active in the fight to reduce tooth and jaw-base of skull injuries in the fast game of hockey.

Getting the best protection fitted-up is a small yet feel-good moment for any family –
Hockey parent finds Brain-Pad; wants the best protection for Wiliam…(Photos courtesy of – Marc Warden Productions and airMS media – Thanks guys!)

Set on lower teeth first – raise guard into upper teeth – and BITE! for a few seconds…Remove and check impressions on top and bottom of guard – these look good…Give your ‘star athlete’ a high-five and he is 1 step closer to lacing up his skates!
It is really that easy to “Reduce jaw impact energy from entering his jaw-joints & the base of his skull!”. Brain-Pad compliments even the best helmets available!

Just look at the results of this NFL Funded Study testing Name-Brand guards –
The higher the Bar on the graph, the more energy recorded in the head-form sensors –

This is the Low Speed Impact Graph – Peak acceleration references the jaw’s velocity prior to slamming into the head-form’s TMJ Sockets:How about a High Speed Impact ? Did the Brain-Pad PRO+, win the day again ?Looks like we have a winner! . . . If winning means keeping malicious impact energy away from your jaw-joints/TMJ sockets and outside of the base of your skull . . .

Brain-Pad now has its newest design available this winter season – The 3XS Jaw-Joint Protector in black and translucent blue or white and translucent black. The 3XS is based from the PRO+ design and adds a 3rd impact absorbing thermoplastic in the channel arms which further reduces impacts. So get a mouth guard and take your chances. Or get a Brain-Pad Jaw-Joint Protector and reduce your chances of jaw impact injury!

Question: I just received a penalty for not having a mouth guard. Why do I need to wear one?

Answer: I think you know part of the answer to this one already. While the obvious answer to using a mouth guard is that it protects your teeth from being chipped or knocked out, a mouth guard is also a very important safety device to prevent injuries.

The main purpose of a mouth guard is clear. It is there to protect your teeth from possible direct blows where they can either be chipped, significantly fractured, or knocked out. While serving a purpose in this regard, they also help to prevent some of the bad lip and cheek lacerations which can happen when a tooth is broken.

The other purpose of a mouth guard is to act as a shock absorber in your mouth. It serves as a spacer between the top and bottom row of your teeth and absorbs shock should you receive a blow to your jaw. You can imagine that if you have a significant blow to your chin that this force is going to go from your chin up through your jaw bone, into your teeth. In this regard, a mouth guard helps to decrease jaw bone (mandible) fractures.

I hope this answers your question and that you choose to wear a mouth guard in all ice hockey related activities in the future. Wearing a mouth guard, and the rules which enforce it, are sort of like the rules for having seatbelts in cars. The mouth guard serves as a seatbelt to protect your teeth & jaw bone.

Robert F. LaPrade, M.D., Ph.D. is a complex knee surgeon at The Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado. He is very active in research for the prevention and treatment of ice hockey injuries. Dr. LaPrade is also the Chief Medical Research Officer at the Steadman Philippon Research Institute. Formerly, he was the team physician for the University of Minnesota men’s hockey team and a professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the U of M. If you have a question for the Hockey Doc, e-mail it to editor @ letsplayhockey . comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .